Acts of Wellness: Colleen Riggle

My name is Colleen Riggle. I’m the Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the Women’s Resource Center, where I manage the day-to-day operations and assist students with academic, personal, and professional needs.
I identify as a white, cisgender woman, U.S. citizen, heterosexual, middle-class, mother, daughter, friend — among other things.

I came into this study pretty excited. It was coming at a good time in my career, both personally and professionally. A friend had passed the study along to me because of the work that I do. There was also some anxiety about being a participant with daily check-ins. Understanding the dissertation process and how important the research component is, I wanted to make sure I could be accountable — that I could really give good information and genuinely dive in.

What I’ve learned about myself is that I really can do more than I think I can. I was feeling a little burnt out at this point in my career. There were some pretty significant things happening on my campus, and it seemed like there was one thing after the next with no time to breathe.

That burnout actually aligned with some changes I had already started making in my personal life — professional development, exercising, eating better, building some vital daily behaviors. The study fit well with what I was already working toward.

The hard part was the reflection itself — really articulating the difference between how I was feeling emotionally versus professionally. Often I’d feel fine because of the daily behaviors I was practicing, but separating how I felt personally from how I felt professionally is difficult when the work is so tied to who I am.

One of the key lessons from my journey is that the habits I built during the study have stuck. I’m still exercising, still trying to read something for fun every day, and still mostly eating healthier — though there are definitely days that call for ice cream.

The lesson I’d offer to organizations and institutions is to take seriously what self-care actually looks like in practice, and how meaningful it can be in helping people feel less burnt out in this field.